sorry, i'm a total noob and i just got my wrx, and i was thinking of putting in a rockford fosgate amp hooked up to the stock HU and run a 10 inch solo-baric sub. can anyone suggest what's considered a decent amp and what's a good series in solo-baric for the sub. Btw, i was checking some stats and details, and noticed a lot of them says it's okay to "bridge" the connections or something, can someone please explain what that means? sorry i'm totally ignorant when it comes to audio =[. Thanks for your help guys

 

You need to add some detail so your question can be better answered.

1) L5 or L7 Solobaric
2) What size Solobaric
3) Dual 2 ohm or Dual 4 ohm voice coils

I have a 10" L7 with the dual 2 ohm voice coils and I am running at 1 ohm mono (bridged) off of a Zapco Z200C2. Bridging the amps means taking 2 channels and wiring them as 1. Not all amps can do this safely, and few can run at 1 ohm mono. Since you don't already have an amp, look for an amp that is mono and it will make wiring easier since you don't have to bridge channels. Hope this is a good starting point for you.

 

i was thinking of this setup for my car. Rockford Fosgate 2 channel amp bridged for more wattage. 1 L7 12" solo baric subwoofer. 4 gauge amp kit, that's what i'm thinking, looking to spend about the 400~500 price range. BTW the sub will be at 4ohms, but can anyone tell me if there is a downfall to bridging? i know the amp i'm looking can support it, it's the fosgate power 450s, it's only 450 watts, and my sub rms's at up to 750 but i dont need that much power. So the amp is good enough for me.

 

I've never had a problem running bridged and can't think of a downfall to it. That setup should sound awesome. Don't forget to budget for a box, the 12L7 is expensive, so you might want to consider the 10L7 to save a little ($50 diff. at crutchfield).

 

hrm, it seems that the stock head unit has no rca ouputs? so....i'm thinking i should just save money on the solobaric, i heard the polk momo's today, it sounds really nice. what do you think? btw, do u use aim? my sn is azn121184, and it would be easier if we talked there.

 

i'm using the oem head unit for now, cuz i'm too broke to buy a new one, and plus i like the 6 cd changer so yea, as for the turning up the bass on the subwoofer, that shouldn't be a problem, because my amp has bass boost so that way, i can always turn down the bass to speakers, and just use the bass boost for the sub, any other suggestions? i will be upgrading the deck in the near future, before thanksgiving probably, anyone got a good deck to recommend that can play mp3's also? thanks

 

Also about bridging and speaker rating resistance...

Generally the higher resistance of a speaker (ohms) the 'tighter' or more precise it is in playing sound...it then takes more watts to make it louder...

When you start running speakers in parallel (i.e. if you ran two 4-Ohm speakers in parallel) to a single channel on an amp, that amp is now 'seeing' only a 2 Ohm load (run the speakers in series and it will 'see' 8 Ohms). You can do this if the amp is rated at that resistance so make sure you check this out...the cool thing is that by running speakers in parallel and decreasing resistance seen by the Amp it actually increases the watts put out by the Amp (all to varying degrees but in theory halving the Ohms seen by the amp will double watts output)...the price you pay doing this however is twofold: usually increased THD from the amp itself but I don't think that's a problem in a Rockford amp, only 'cheaper' amps...the other price is sound quality - those speakers now will play 'sloppier' as the internal resistance of the speaker serves as a damping factor which slows down the cone/coil as it moves in and out...

So designing the system depends on what you want...if you want high-quality sound your trade-off will be total attainable volume - don't run speakers in parallel and ultimately you'd want 1 speaker per amp channel (usually 4 Ohm speakers in car stereos). If you want volume you'll sacrifice sound quality, especially at louder volumes. Generally bridging an amp or running it at lower resistances than 4 Ohms won't make much difference with regard to how the sub sounds...but you will notice it with mid and high-frequencies...

Anyway that's my rant, sorry...

 

uhm okay, now i have a question, how would i wire my wires directly onto the stock head unit???


can i just splice the wires and tap into it?

 

Yes--

You can just splice into the wires on the wiring harness going into the back of the unit...you'll have to find out what color wires go to which speaker though, and importantly which is the + and which is the - for each...I don't know since I never took my radio apart in the Subaru...

Just don't do this with the intention of adding more speakers to the stock head unit as I'm sure it's puny little built-in amp can't handle it...

 

Oops...

You can also probably buy a harness adaptor from Crutchfield or a local stereo shop for a Subaru that will plug into the stock harness and give you wires for the speakers to splice on to so you don;t have to hack apart the stock wiring...that way when you get rid of the car you can just unplug the spliced wires and plug the stock harness back into the head unit...

 

Well, he could hook up a line converter to the rear's, adjust gain on the amps accordingly and use the fader on the OEM HU as a "sort of" sub level control. He would just need to adjust the gain on the amp so that the rear speakers won't be blasting when he fades to the rear.